O, a Christmas Tree!
by WRTRD
Summary: If Christmas spirit is contagious, Kate Beckett is secretly hoping to catch some from Rick Castle. Set in season 3. A three-shot. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Kate Beckett needs a little Christmas. Of course it will be little, that's not the point. It's the need part. For the first time in more than a decade, she needs Christmas. Yearns for it.

It's not that she wants to recreate the celebrations of her childhood. Those are over, shoved in the darkest corner of a basement she never intends to revisit. No, what she wants is some of the joy of it. She can't capture or create the all-consuming delight in the holiday that Castle has, but she'd like just a little bit of it. Have it on loan, and give it back in January when he packs up Christmas and prepares himself for the next holiday, whatever it is. Groundhog Day, maybe. Yeah, she can see him having a party for that. Costumes, definitely. He'd be Punxsutawney Phil, in some faux-fur getup with a big tail and little ears and teeth. She could be his shadow. That'd be a switch.

But now it's the middle of December, and New York makes a market in Christmas, with tree stalls crowding every block; bell ringers and oversized elves on every corner; taxis sprouting velour antlers on the roof; everyone from stock brokers to drunks sporting Santa hats.

Yes, Beckett needs a little Christmas.

She had called it quits with Josh at Thanksgiving, and she's still marginally embarrassed about feeling nothing but relief. He's very easy on the eye, and very smart, but the man never reads a book or goes to a movie, and he's about as much fun as anesthesia. And sex? It wasn't long before it was way too clinical. Down and dirty to him is sleeping on the same sheets two nights in a row. That's not the only reason she dropped him, she admits, if only to herself. She did it because she has her eye on someone else, even though his eye, and the rest of him, is already on someone else. Someone blonde and smart who strikes Beckett as about as much fun as anesthesia, too. If only she could introduce her to Josh.

So Beckett needs a little Christmas. She just doesn't know how to get it. Maybe a wreath. Yes, a wreath would be nice, and just the right amount of holiday cheer. She'll smell the balsam every time she walks down the hallway, it will make her and her neighbors smile, and that will be it. On the way home from work she stops at the hardware store and buys a wreath hanger for her front door. This is good. She wrestles the hanger out of its blister pack, thinking how much easier it would be if she had Josh's surgical skills, and props open the front door. Well, hell. There are so many layers of paint on it that it can't close with the hanger looped over the top. Kiss that $8.68 goodbye, not to mention the attempt at Yuletide home improvement.

It puts her in a funk, not being able to have a wreath. Is it asking too much to have a little greenery, spruced up with a couple of pine cones and a red ribbon, to welcome her home? Huh, spruced up, that's kind of funny. Castle would appreciate that, but if she told Castle about what she'd just tried and failed to do, he'd probably buy her a new front door. And an obscenely large wreath. At least she already has the hanger.

She mopes around wreathlessly for the next couple of days, while Castle gets merrier by the minute. He's so suffused with Christmas spirit, in fact, that he doesn't at first notice her mood. When he does, he puts her gloom down to her individual variety of seasonal affective disorder: her mother had been murdered shortly after Christmas and the holiday is an annual painful reminder. And yet, as he observes her—and he has become a grade-A observer in the last two-plus years—he thinks it's not that. She hadn't looked glum or downright refused the two cupcakes he had brought her earlier in the week, one iced with NAUGHTY and the other, NICE. She hadn't told him to shut up when he sang "Let It Snow!" in the car when the heater gave out. So what is it?

He chews it over silently. Could it be? Could it be, dare he hope, is it possible: she broke up with Doctor McIcky? It's been at least a month (thirty-six days; he keeps count) since the man slimed his way across the bullpen, running his surgeon's hands through his over-gelled hair as he made his way to Beckett's desk. She hasn't mentioned him in weeks, but if the break-up isn't new, why is she down in the dumps now? This requires thought, thought and genuine detective work, even if he isn't a genuine detective. He'll sleep on it.

While Castle is preparing to sleep on it, Beckett is bringing home a tree. Maybe it was rash, but the wreath hadn't worked, and so she'd moved the bar up a bit to a tree. A little tree. She'd thought that she'd have a lot of choices, since everyone she had seen in the last two weeks had been shouldering behemoths that appeared to be seven feet tall and almost as wide. There would be lots of little trees, right? Wrong. She went to four places before she found one, and it was only borderline acceptable. Still, it was green, and three feet tall, so she took it. She'll string popcorn on it. Popcorn is a staple of her diet and she has plenty on hand.

Once she's in her apartment, she realizes she has no tree stand, so she makes do with the only thing handy, a blue plastic bucket that usually holds her cleaning supplies. No matter how she arranges the tree, it lists to one side, a side that on close inspection proves to be bald. By the time she finishes popping three bags of corn in the microwave, most of the needles on the good side have cascaded to the floor.

She needs a little Christmas, and this sure as hell isn't it.

The next morning, Castle wakes from a particularly savory dream in which Beckett appeared in his bedroom wearing nothing but a silk top hat and said, "Hi. I'm Frosty, wanna thaw me out?" While he showers, shaves, and dresses, and tries to hold on to but repress the image of naked-but-for-a-hat Beckett, he comes up with a simple plan. When he stops for their usual coffees on the way to the precinct, he draws three little boxes tied up with ribbons on the lid of her cup. She's sure to notice.

"Morning, Beckett," he says, setting the cardboard tray on her desk and impassively registering delight at the absence of Ryan and Esposito.

"Hey, Castle. Thanks."

"Where are the guys?" he asks as he settles on his chair.

"Out talking to a witness. Don't think they'll get much." She picks up her coffee, takes a sip, and then looks down. "Huh. That's kind of cute. Did you draw those?"

Oh good, that can lead directly to his first question. "Thanks. So, got your Christmas shopping done?"

"Don't do much of that, Castle."

She doesn't make a face as she says it, which he takes as a good sign. "What about Josh? Got to give him something, right? What do you give a cardiologist, anyway? A gold scalpel?"

She's pressing the cup right against her bottom lip, and looking at him over the newly decorated lid. She holds both the pose and the gaze for so long that he can feel the beading of sweat at one temple. He's beginning to worry that he's in trouble, and then she puts the cup next to her keyboard and places her hands, palms flat, on either side. "I, we, we're not exchanging gifts," she says, dropping her eyes.

What should he do? Play it safe, that's what. Just say, casually, "Oh?" So he does. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I, uh, gave myself an early Christmas present by breaking up with him a couple of weeks ago."

Non-Detective Castle is sure that he detects a tiny, tiny smile at the corner of Detective Beckett's holly-berry-red mouth. He knows he has to suppress his glee, eliminate the squeak, when he responds, so he takes a moment. "Really?" Mr. Casual says. "I'm sorry, Beckett."

"Don't be," she says. "I was dying from boredom."

"Well, good, because I was lying. I'm not sorry at all." Uh-oh. Oh, God. He was so busy not squeaking that he forgot to censor himself.

There's a highly caffeinated silence, and she's the one to break it.

"You're not?" He's pretty sure that she sounds pleased, even hopeful. Good thing he still has his jacket on so she can't see his heart beating through his shirt.

"Nope. I'm in kind of the same position. Broke up with Gina right after Hallowe'en. Seemed appropriate, given that she's a, um."

"Witch?"

He can't help laughing. "Yeah."

Beckett is nibbling the rim of the lid now, and looking sideways at him. "She leave on her broom?"

"She did. Left Broome Street on her broom."

And now she can't help laughing.

"Beckett?"

"What?"

"So, you're okay?"

"Definitely okay, Castle. And you?"

"Don't I look okay? More than okay?"

"You do."

"I, can I— It's, you've seemed a little morose the last couple of days is all, so it's nice to see you jolly."

"Jolly?" She wrinkles her nose. "I've never in my life been called jolly."

"Appropriate for the time of year, jolliness. Just, not the after affects of a breakup got you down?"

"Not at all."

"Well, then, in this spirit of True Confessions we've got going, will you tell me what it is? Since I'm your partner. I'd really like to help."

She feels a blush coming up her neck. "It's my tree."

"Your tree?" He is genuinely puzzled. "What, like a family tree? Or a ficus?"

"Neither. My Christmas tree."

He moves from genuinely puzzled to authentically stunned. "You have a _Christmas_ tree?"

"Yeah. And it's worse than Charlie Brown's."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** I know that you're familiar with this refrain. This story grew all by itself and will now have three chapters.

"Really?" That's the best he can manage in his current state.

"Really."

"You have a tree?"

"Yes, Castle, I have a tree, but most of the needles fell out right after I got it home."

"So you have a bald tree?" He's still having trouble coming to grips with this information. Not the baldness, but the fact that she bought a Christmas tree.

"As bald as LL Cool J. Nothing cool about it, though."

" 'Peanuts' and a rapper in one metaphor?" He beams at her as he not entirely accidentally brushes his hand over hers. "I'm dazzled, Beckett."

"Cross-cultural references might be my specialty today," she says, deadpan.

He wants to kiss her for that, but he can't, so he's reduced to murmuring, "Oh, my God" as he presses his palm over his still-wildly-beating heart. Their pre-Christmas interlude ends abruptly as Ryan and Espo emerge from the elevator. If Castle didn't like them both so much, and if he weren't sitting inside a police station, he might strangle them, or at the very least shove them in a locker. Instead he smiles gamely and says, "Hi, guys," making sure that his errant hand is no longer anywhere near Beckett's.

And then the case takes over, catches them all up, and even Mr. Jingle Bells can't spare a moment to ruminate on the sad state of Beckett's tree. At three-thirty there's a tiny break in the case; by six, it widens to a hole the size of a running shoe worn by their suspect; at ten it's a chasm into which the Band of Four toss him, and then Beckett sends Ryan and Esposito home. Half an hour later, with Castle sitting by her side, she passes a pen to the quivering perp. He looks relieved to sign his confession and even more so to be escorted from the room, away from the detective's death-ray stare which he's guessing is considerably hotter than anything he'll experience in hell.

"You're not coming in tomorrow, right? Since it's Saturday," Castle asks Beckett as they put on coats, scarves and gloves.

"Nope. Whole weekend off," she says, retrieving her bag from her desk drawer.

"Can I give you a lift home?" Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease say yes, he thinks, wanting to stretch this day out as much as possible.

She smiles faintly. "Yeah, that would be nice. I'm so tired I don't think I can drive myself or have the strength to find a taxi on a Friday night during the holidays."

"Then consider me your chauffeur, Detective," he says, bowing so deeply that he allows himself an exultant grin that he knows she can't see.

A quarter of an hour later, parked in front of her building, he can't decide whether to wake her up or let her sleep a little longer so that he can watch her. He wants to take in every detail of her nap, the slight snuffling when she moves her head to the left, the tiny mole under her eye that stands out against her skin in the light from the dashboard, the tilt of her shoulder towards his when she settles a little more deeply into the seat. He could sit like this all night, but after a few minutes he reluctantly decides to wake her. He's pretty sure that after what happened between them this morning he can risk putting his hand on her knee. It's covered in very soft, very dark blue wool, and he gives it a very gentle squeeze.

"Beckett?"

Nothing. Well, not nothing: there's a slight wrinkling of her nose, a wisp of a sigh.

He shakes her knee. "Beckett?"

She opens her eyes, which happen to be directly in front of his. She blinks, blinks again. "Are we here already?"

"Yup, just pulled in."

She may not be completely awake, but she knows that's not true. First, his eyes are a giveaway, a very, very blue giveaway; second, when she pokes the tip of her tongue to the corner of her mouth she's unhappy at what she finds there. "No, you didn't. I've been drooling, Castle. Drooling! Were you staring at me while I drooled? How long have we been here anyway?" She dips her head and looks out the window, as if something between the car and the front of her apartment building might give her the answer or offer some clue.

"I didn't see you drool, Beckett, but if I had I'm sure I'd have thought it was adorable." Uh-oh. "You want to see something adorable, you should see the way you scrunch up your nose when someone tries to wake you." Uh-oh redux, redoubled. Has he gone too far?

Her eyes are wide now, and getting wider. "I should see myself scrunching up my nose? Wait! Castle! Tell me you didn't take a picture of me just now." She lunges for his coat pocket but he beats her to it.

"I didn't take a picture of you. Just now." He presses his hand hard against the outside of his pocket to prevent her from reaching in and grabbing his phone.

Oh, she's awake. Five hundred percent awake. "Just now, Castle?" she asks, putting heavy emphasis on "now." Her eyes, which just seconds ago had been as wide as he's ever seen them, narrow. "Give me that phone."

"Nope. Not gonna."

"Then I will shoot you."

"You wouldn't."

"Wanna try me?"

"You won't shoot an innocent civilian."

"We'll wrestle for it, then."

"What?"

"Arm or mud?"

"Excuse me?"

"Arm wrestle or mud wrestle?"

A new vision immediately manifests itself in his brain, right next to the one of Beckett in nothing but a silk top hat from last night's dream. This new Beckett—well, no, it's the same Beckett because she's one of a kind—this mirage is also Beckett, still naked, but now covered head to toe in a sleek second skin of mud. Ooooh. Oh, he said "Ooooh" out loud.

If he could read Beckett's mind—and he does come very close to it at times, she realizes—he would see a mud-covered counterpart there: himself, naked except for a revelatory coating of luxurious, um, ooze.

She snaps to before he does, mentally thanking the god of reflexes, whoever that may be, and succeeds in getting the phone. She uses her left arm to hold Castle off and her right to open the photos. She gasps as she scrolls quickly, and then more quickly before she looks up from the screen. "Castle?"

He is immobile in the seat next to her, not even trying to get his phone back. He knows exactly what she has found. Evidence. Evidence and more evidence. He doesn't answer her.

"Castle? There must be hundreds of pictures of me in here."

She doesn't sound mad, just taken aback, so what the hell. He thinks of the wonderful old expression that you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. "Four hundred nineteen. I deleted a few."

She looks back at the phone, then turns her gaze to him again. "But these, these. They go back to, you know—"

"Almost the beginning. Yeah." He gestures vaguely to the phone. "Second case, actually, that first picture."

"But, how? I mean I never saw you, you know, taking pictures. Of me."

"That's because I myself am the picture of stealth, Beckett, and very skilled with my hands. Quite amazingly so, if you'll forgive my saying."

It's very cold on the other side of the car door, and very warm on this side of it. Warmer by the second. Beckett extends her arm and all but pushes the phone into his chest. "Thanks for the ride, Castle. I gotta go. Inside. To, you know, sleep." She yanks the handle far harder than necessary, particularly in something as magnificently engineered as a Ferrari, and gets out. She adds "Night," as she closes the door and then runs to the lobby, leaving Castle wondering.

Wondering what, exactly? Wondering where he stands, where they stand, what happened, what didn't, what might. He wonders, most of all, how early he can call her in the morning. He puts the car in gear, drives home, undresses, brushes his teeth and goes to sleep instantly, as if something had just hit him, hard. Which of course it had.

Several blocks away, Beckett is not even on the outer limits of sleep. What just happened, anyway? She's addled. This morning she told Castle about her pitiful tree, and before you could say good grief, Charlie Brown, she'd told him that she'd tossed Josh to the curb, and he'd told her that Gina was blonde toast. And then in the car just now she had all but invited him into her bed. Okay, into a mud pit. Same thing. Kind of. Mud wrestling, what had she been thinking? Clearly she hadn't been thinking at all. Except maybe of him hot and heavy—no. Not going there. Not right away.

And what is she going to do about her tree? She doesn't want to buy another: it took all her gumption to get that one. But she can't throw the little guy out, either. Oh, my God, she says to herself. I'm thinking of my Christmas tree as a little guy. I anthropomorphized a three-foot tall, desiccated balsam. She gets into bed, picks up her pillow, buries her face in it, screams and beats her heels against the mattress. Eventually she falls asleep.

It's seven o'clock and not fully light; sunrise is still several minutes away. Castle, wearing slippers and a robe, is drinking coffee in the kitchen and trying to decide if he can call Beckett yet. He might wake her. If he does, she might be pissed off, or might hang up and go back to sleep. Or she might see who's calling and refuse to answer. But she might already be awake, in which case it would be fine to call her, right? Except for the Rudolph—no, make that Vixen—in-the-headlights expression she'd had when she found all those photos on his phone. He reminds himself that she hadn't yelled at him, or worse. She just seemed shocked, not unlike the way he had felt when she revealed that she had bought a Christmas tree. One that is apparently even more pathetic than Charlie Brown's.

He puts his mug in the dishwasher and stands up a little straighter. That's it. That's his mission this morning, his only mission: to help her with her tree, and not in any way that she might expect. He lives large, but he can do small, even if she doesn't know it. That's what she wants, small. A small step towards Christmas, if he's reading her right, and he thinks he is. Okay, small it is. Baby steps. No Tiffany star for the top of the tree, then. Besides, the top of her tree is about waist high. Can't have her bumping into a Tiffany star every time she walks by her tree. Could damage her belly button, catch on her clothes, make a sash untie. Does she have anything with a sash? She must. A bathrobe. Yeah, a star could catch on her bathrobe sash and there she'd be, naked in her living room. Oh, boy.

It's sleeting, which isn't exactly festive, but the upside is that she won't be out running and he'll find her at home. He waits as long as humanly possible, at least for this particular human, and at eight o'clock he knocks on her door, carrying two cups of coffee and some toasted, buttered bagels.

"Castle?"

She opens the door. Oh, thank God. She's wearing a bathrobe. She has a bathrobe. And it has a sash.

"Breakfast, Beckett!" he says brightly, holding up the bag and the coffees. "May I come in?"

"Uh, sure," she says blearily, having gotten to sleep only four hours earlier.

He sees the tree immediately, leaning precipitously in the blue plastic bucket. "Needlelessly!" he says.

"What?"

"Needlelessly. The tree has no needles, and therefore no need of a stand. Get it?"

"Yeah. I guess." She stifles a yawn and walks despondently to the tree. "I told you it was worse than Charlie Brown's."

"That's exactly why I'm here. Lucy, you got a lot of 'splaining to do. And after that, I need some of your socks and—. But that can wait. Tell me everything."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"Lucy?" She asks, more than a little befuddled, as he goes to her kitchen.

"Lucy. Charlie Brown. See? But also a nod to 'I Love Lucy,' just so you know that I can do cross-cultural references, too." He gets two plates for the bagels, and heads for the sofa. "I think you need this coffee, Beckett. Perk you right up."

"What, I'm not perky enough for you, Castle?" She's trying to sound grumpy, but it's hard to pull off since she's so happy to see him. She plops down next to him and reaches greedily for one of the cups that he has put on the coffee table.

"Drink up, Beckett, I want you to be clear-headed while you tell me about the tree."

She takes a few sips, followed by a gulp, followed by a sound that reaches his ears as an erotic, previously unknown combination of a moan and a sigh. He's trying to sort it out when she does it again, and it occurs to him that he needs to be clear-headed, too.

"My tree."

"Right." He leans forward a little in anticipation of her story.

"What about it?"

He has some choices again. How should he phrase his question? How does he reel her in and not scare her off? How does he figure out what's going on in her head? How—oh, the hell with it, he'll just ask. "I understand why you haven't celebrated Christmas in a long time, so I wondered what made you change your mind?" He looks around her apartment. There are no twinkling lights, no garlands or brightly wrapped presents or displays of cards. Not even a plum pudding in a can. The only concession to the holiday is a scrawny tree in a blue bucket. "Uh, change your mind a little."

She can prevaricate, she can come up with a credible fib, or she can return to the True Confessions conversation of yesterday. Suck it up, she tells herself. Go with True Confessions. "I want to have a little Christmas again, Castle. I want the joy of it, you know? Not the whole deal, just the feeling." She stops for another hit of caffeine and a hit of bravery. "I tried to get a wreath, but, well, it didn't work out. Anyway, so I thought a tiny tree would be okay. I could handle that. I got all in the mood, I went to a stand, and then—" she waves feebly at the fir. "That. Pathetic, huh? It's some kind of weird ghost of Christmas past, isn't it? You think it's haunted?"

"Nope."

"That's all you, the man of limitless words, has to say to me? Especially on the subject of Christmas? 'Nope'?"

"Yup."

She can't help laughing at that. "Hand me a bagel, Gary Cooper."

"I bet Gary Cooper never had a bagel in his life."

"Gimme it anyway."

"Nice movie reference, by the way."

"Thanks," she says, tearing off a chunk of bagel and popping it in her mouth. She thinks while she chews, and finally says. "What changed my mind is that I thought I could get it from you. Just a little bit. You'd still have plenty."

He looks at her, as confused as she had been when he arrived. "Get what from me?"

"Spirit. Joy."

It takes a lot to silence Richard Castle, but that does it. What she just said, those two small words of one syllable, touched him so deeply that he has to struggle not to cry. He takes a moment before he responds, clears his throat as if a crumb were caught there, and not his heart.

"Nothing would make me happier," he says, folding his hand over hers and running the soft pad of his thumb over her wrist. "And you could have all of it, not just a little bit."

To his surprise, and to hers, she turns his hand over and kisses his palm. "A little bit is where I have to start, Castle."

They're both quiet for a while, and then he clears his throat again. "Believe it or not, I know that. It's why I'm here." He gets up from the sofa, pulling her up with him. "I need a scarf and at least ten pairs of your socks, as many different colors as you have. And a needle and thread and some scissors. Oh, and some of your aluminum takeout containers. I know you have some. Probably fifty, but two will do. And well washed, please."

She looks at him as if he has taken leave of his senses, which is crazy because all his senses are fully and most deliciously engaged at the moment. "Say what?"

"If you don't know where they are, I can help you look for them. I've wanted to get in your drawers for the longest time."

That nets him an especially expressive eye roll. "No need, Castle, I'm quite capable of getting everything on your weird little Christmas list. I'll be right back." And with that she disappears into the bedroom and he takes the opportunity to scare up a good-size bowl in her kitchen before he sits on a stool at the counter.

"Here you go," she says, depositing everything but the takeout containers in front of him.

"Whoa! You have pink socks?"

"Yes, two pairs, and no snitching."

"I would never," he says, delivering the promise with a dramatic fervor that would have thrilled his mother. "I'm just happy that you do." He rolls each pair of socks—three black, two blue, two pink, one green, one gray, one red, one yellow, and one purple—into a tight ball and uses needle and thread to fashion a loop at the top. He looks up from the neat and colorful pile. "You have those takeout containers?"

"Yes," she says, dropping two on the counter.

He picks up the scissors and quickly cuts the bottoms into five similar shapes in a variety of sizes. He makes a hole in each one and runs thread through it to make a loop, just as he had with the socks. "Oh," he says. "I need some wire, the kind you use to hang pictures. Do you have any?"

"I think," she answers, getting up to rummage through a drawer, finally producing a small packet and passing it to him.

He grabs the wire, fills the bowl with the socks and aluminum cutouts, and stands up. "Okay, Beckett. Tell me where you want to put your tree. How about over there near your desk, so you can see it from wherever you sit?"

"Don't really want to see it, Castle, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Oh ye, of little faith. C'mon." He reaches for her hand, and she lets him lead her to the living room. "We need to take the tree from here," he says, lifting it out of the bucket, "to here." He carries it to the side of her desk, where he props it up in the deep bowl, and runs some wire around the middle of the trunk before anchoring it to the handle of her one-drawer filing cabinet. "There. Good and steady. Just need to put some water in the bowl, but not before we decorate."

"Decorate?" She has returned to a state of cluelessness.

"Yup." And with grace she wasn't aware he had, he drapes a scarf around the bowl, and hangs a dozen pairs of socks—now transformed into vibrant, fuzzy Christmas tree balls—and four aluminum stars on the bare branches. He fastens the fifth cutout, a radiant sun, to the top of the tree, silently gratified to see that it is, indeed, at the same level as her bathrobe sash. He sits back on his haunches and looks up at her. "What do you think? Would Charlie Brown like it?"

She drops to the floor, kneeling right next to him and touching each ornament in turn. "I don't know about Charlie Brown, Castle, but Lucy loves it. And you know, she never likes _anything_." She smiles, transformed every bit as much as the tree, and then she takes his face in her hands and kisses him in a way Lucy definitely never kissed Charlie Brown. It starts out as a PG embrace, moves rapidly through PG-13 to an R and is approaching NC-17 territory when she pulls back. "Thank you, Castle," she says, pressing her forehead against his.

"You're welcome. Not that I'm not enjoying this, but it's incredibly uncomfortable. Would you mind if we moved to the sofa?"

"Good idea," she says, taking his hand so they can stand up together.

They sit contentedly on the sofa, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder. "So. Four hundred and nineteen pictures of me, huh? Sounds like stalking."

"Four hundred twenty-seven. Perfect as you are, once in a very rare while a photo does not do you justice and must be deleted. And for the record, I wasn't stalking you. I'm just, you know."

"What?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. You're just what?"

He takes a deep breath. "Besotted."

"Okay. Good. That's good."

He draws her in a little closer and points to the tree. "Think it needs lights?"

"Nope. It's perfect."

"A little bit of Christmas."

"For this year. I think I'll be working my way up. Soon."

"New Year right around the corner, Beckett. Only two weeks away. A lot can happen in a new year."

She rolls over, climbs into his lap, and kisses him again. "A lot can happen in two weeks."

"Is that a promise?"

"Definitely."

He kisses her again. "Can I ask you something?"

"Mmmhmm, but then I want to stop talking for a while."

"Do you happen to have a silk top hat?"

 **A/N** Thank you for reading this little story. People of many faiths and traditions celebrate holidays at this time of year, among them Bodhi Day, Hanukkah, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the winter solstice, Yalda, Christmas, Yule, Kwanzaa, and Milad un-Nabi. I wish each of you the joys of the season, and above all, peace.


End file.
